The most ingenious of the Puritan poets was the Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, whose “Day of Doom” is the most remarkable curiosity in American literature. “He was as skilled,” says one of his biographers, “in physic and surgery as in diviner things;” and when he could neither preach nor prescribe for the physical sufferings of his neighbors,—
“In costly verse, and most laborious rhymes,
He dished up truths right worthy our regard.”
He was buried in Malden, near Boston, and his epitaph was written by Mather.
THE EXCELLENT MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH.
Remembered by some good tokens.
“His pen did once meat from the eater fetch;
And now he’s gone beyond the eater’s reach.
His body, once so thin, was next to none;
From hence he’s to unbodied spirits flown.
Once his rare skill did all diseases heal;
And he does nothing now uneasy feel.
He to his Paradise is joyful come,
And waits with joy to see his Day of Doom.”
The last epitaph for which we have now space is from the monument of Dr. Clark, a grandson of the celebrated Dr. John Clark, who came to New England in 1630.
“He who among physicians shone so late,
And by his wise prescriptions conquered Fate,
Now lies extended in the silent grave;
Nor him alive would his vast merit save.
But still his fame shall last, his virtues live,
And all sepulchral monuments survive:
Still flourish shall his name: nor shall this stone
Long as his piety and love be known.”
And
“Such graves as his are pilgrim shrines,
Shrines to no code or creed confined—
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind.”
The One-Hoss Shay.
Mr. Mundella, of the British Parliament, recently said,—